30 day challenge

Wow, that last post was kind of a whine-fest, eh? Waa waa, you have free time, poor baby. No wonder there were so few comments, you were probably all pulling out your tiny violins and playing them for poor old me. But you know what I decided? When I have time between gigs, what I need to do is challenge myself in some way to keep my brain active. The reason I personally am in a better mood when I'm working is that I thrive on challenges, and rehearsing and performing opera is always that. Writing is also a challenge, but it's not such a big challenge when I'm feeling inspired - it just flows. But recently my dad asked me if I ever thought about blogging every day, and I replied, "Noooooooo, Dad! I can only write when I am in-spaaaaaaahed." But what if I forced myself to get inspaaaaahed every morning? In the book The Artists Way, which is about tapping into your own creativity to the fullest, the author suggests that you write something called "morning pages" every morning to get your creativity flowing first thing. I tried that and I think I was able to do it for about a month and then I stopped feeling it. But that was before I had started blogging, and my writing has changed a lot since then. So my challenge to myself this month is to blog every single day (gasp) for 30 days and see what it does for me. Which means, people, that sometimes I end up blogging about some really boring crap. Or maybe I will become funny again, because lately I feel like I've been sort of not so hilarious in the ol' blog entries. But I'm gonna try the experiment to see if it kicks me in the butt a little bit.

The subject kicking around in my head today is justice and fairness. "Whoever told you that life was fair?" my mom is fond of saying to me (she's good at keeping me grounded). And yet I still get absolutely incensed when I see an injustice occurring, especially when it happens to someone I care about. This week I witnessed what I think anybody would agree was a great injustice happening to a friend of mine - someone incredibly talented, hard working, and kind - who had an opportunity that should have belonged to them yanked out from under them. My first reaction was to fly into a rage ( I was in the process of doing my laundry when I found out and those dryer doors got some abuse) and then I started to feel sort of despondent, asking myself why we even BOTHER when talent isn't rewarded?

I called my parents (as I often do in times of stress and confusion) and they made a good analogy. This business (or any artistic endeavor in which you are trying to make a living and not just doing it for fun) is basically a lottery. If you are talented enough, you are allowed to buy a ticket, but once you buy a ticket, it's basically up to fate whether you win the lottery or not. You might win $5 or you might win ten million, but it's all a matter of chance. Will you meet the right person, who will introduce you to another right person, who will decide you deserve being pushed to the top? Will you get sick the night of your big debut at a huge house and blow it? Will you sing your audition before lunch when the intendant is hungry and in a bad mood or after lunch when he's full and feeling better? If you want to be in this business, you have to be willing to buy that lottery ticket and leave your fate up to something way beyond your control. BUT you have to keep working at your craft to even be allowed to buy a new ticket every day. And of course, many people believe that our attitude and energy have a huge affect on what our fate turns out to be, so those things are important too.

I guess the lesson is always the same - as trite and cliched as it sounds - that you have to decide when you succeed and fail, and not leave it up to the outside world to determine that. Does success for an opera singer mean singing at La Scala or does it mean challenging yourself to improve in some small way every day? Does success mean making a recording or being able to sing a high C for yourself in your living room, as perfectly as you can? Does success mean having an article about you written in a magazine or teaching third graders who hated opera something that makes them interested in it? I'm saying all this for myself, by the way, not in order to sound all grandiose and patronizing. In the same way that success in an artistic field can be all about perception (did a 5 year old splatter paint on that canvas or did Jackson Pollock create it? knowing the answer will almost certainly affect how you feel about it the painting), success for oneself is about your own self perception. It's something to remind ourselves of every day. I certainly need to.

Whew! So much heavy stuff!! I REALLY need to find the funny again. Well, I have 30 consecutive blogging days to try.....

Free time = doing time

For most people, the one thing they wish they had more of was free time. If they just had more time off, they would get so much accomplished, go on vacation, relax, spend time doing the things they loved. Except when the thing you love doing the most is also your job, free time SUCKS.

Don't get me wrong - after I've been working for awhile, I'm quite happy to have a week off, where I can see my friends, get my life organized and relax a little bit. But after about a week, I start to go stir crazy and get a little depressed. I have too much time on my hands to do things like worry about my career (and my personal life) and I wish some job would magically appear and whisk me away and make me busy again. I've gotten much better about organizing my time and reminding myself that the way for me to stay happy is to stay productive, but I'm not going to lie, it's a challenge. It's amazing to me the difference in my general level of happiness when I'm working as opposed to when I'm not working. Last year I was at an audition in Germany when I ran into a colleague that I had met before but I couldn't figure out where. I was asking him if he had worked at company x or y, and he sarcastically quipped, "oh no, I really don't work that often. Only a couple of jobs per year - just enough to keep me going. Emotionally I mean - not financially."

He was being darkly humorous, and I laughed when he said this - but I laughed because it is so true! I should be thrilled that I have a month where I don't HAVE to work, and that I have enough money to live on. Most normal people could think of a million things they would do with this time. But most opera singers I know just don't like it. Because when going to work is so much fun, it's when you're not going to work that you start to feel like you're in jail. So many people make analogies about their offices being like prison - but for me it's the opposite - when I don't go to the "office" is when I feel scattered and hopeless. I even get annoyed when I'm working but I have too many days off. You can ask the director of Agrippina how many times I jokingly asked him, "am I even IN this opera??" because I hated the fact that I would sometimes have two days in a row without rehearsal.

This "obsession" with work (and I put obsession in quotes because I don't really want to admit that's what it might be) is probably something that some people would call unhealthy. Or maybe some people would tell me to get a life so that I have other things in this world that make me happy. But I DO have a life - I have fantastic friends and family, many many things other than singing that interest me, and could totally amuse myself all day with a paperclip, a record jacket, and a glass of pomegranate juice if it came down to that. I just really love going to rehearsal and jumping around and singing and diminuendoing a phrase and interacting with colleagues. What can I say? It's a really, really fun job.

But to put it all in perspective, I happened to see the movie The Hurt Locker earlier this week. I saw it the night before it won the Oscar for best picture, and found it incredibly moving. It's a movie about soldiers in Iraq who diffuse bombs, and who spend every single day walking the line between life and death. Of course we all know that this is happening intellectually, but the reason the movie was so good was that it was able to put you psychologically into the head of someone whose desperation and fears go beyond what we all feel every day because they literally fear for their lives every moment. The movie shook me to my core and demanded from me "Why on earth do you ever think you have problems? How could you ever feel fear, or nervousness, or depression when there are people out there in the world dealing with THIS?"

But then, that's life, isn't it? We live inside our own worlds, our own problems, and sometimes we can step outside and gain some perspective, but only sometimes. The rest of the time we just have to be content with whining about things like free time and not getting to sing enough dimenuendos, and hope that life jolts us back into humanity with enough regularity that we can be happier more often than we're complaining. And hey, I can always go sing some dimenuendos for the crazy lady that seems to live on the corner near Riverside Park. She often gives me the thumbs up. Or the finger. And I can find a reason to be grateful for both.

Honesty is such a lonely word

Or is it? I don't mean to dorkify myself by quoting Billy Joel (although I fully admit that I did really enjoy listening to his Live from the USSR CD in college) but I've been having some interesting discussions lately with people about whether or not it's prudent to be an opera singer who writes a blog about all her fears and vulnerabilities. Performers are supposed to be confident - confidence gets you hired - so who would be stupid enough to talk about being freaked out or insecure on the internet where everybody can read it??? Me, apparently.

Last week I was blogging about the "IT" factor and had a lot of interesting comments, many of which came from an anonymous source, whose only clue to their identity was that they are a "principal singer at the top level". Okay, so why would a famous singer feel the need to be anonymous when commenting on my blog? If that person is already at the top level, they should be able to relax and say whatever is on their mind without the fear of repercussions, right? No way! People who are savvy about the business know that you have to present an image from all angles, and that revealing your true thoughts can often do damage to this image, which you must protect because a lot of people's salaries now depend on YOU, the product! Yes, it's sad that singers are now products (which is partly what this commenter was noting) but of course that's the case in every entertainment industry, especially with the media playing such a huge role in any artists success in any field. So anonymous has to stay that way in order to protect him or herself and all the people whose salaries he or she might be helping to pay with their fame.

But what about me? I'm not paying anybody's salaries yet, that's for sure. I'm lucky if I'm paying my credit card bills (but that's more a result of my own addiction to shopping and not necessarily an indication of my earning potential) but there could be a time where I have to become more of a product to sell cd's or tickets or limited edition t-shirts with the slogan, "Trying to remain opera-tional - blogging for punny opera nerds!" So what do I do about this need I have to be honest with myself AND in my writing? Well, the honest answer is that I don't know. But what I'm hoping will happen is that this honest and open dialogue is able to become a part of my product. That one of the reasons people enjoy hearing me sing is that they have a little insight into who I am and what my innermost thoughts and fears are, and that insight actually gives them another angle on my artistry. I hope that I will both be able to continue to succeed in my career at a higher and higher level, and that I won't ever have a PR agent who says, "OH MY GOD SHUT UP!! STOP WRITING THIS DOWN FOR THE PUBLIC AND GO TELL IT TO A SHRINK!!!" Because my writing has become a creative outlet for me, and if I had to be something other than what I am, (which is a slightly neurotic if somewhat eloquent and ultimately relatively confident human being) I don't think I would be particularly inspired to write. So I just open up and let you see my beating heart, and hope that everybody is cool with that.

I've gotta go. My future publicist is chasing me with a big red delete button.

Agrippina - The Trailer

Okay, enough whining about how hard it is to be an opera singer (or any type of artist). Here's a look at how much fun it can be!!

Nayo Titzin is a fabulous Bulgarian filmmaker (who happens to be married to La Pendatchanska - what a talented pair!!!), who is making a documentary about the creation of our Agrippina production and the historical characters within. This video is just a three and a half minute trailer, but it certainly makes me want to see the whole film. Enjoy!

The "IT" factor, part two

I've had an interesting couple of days since my last blog post, and this subject elicited such intriguing comments that I thought a follow up post was appropriate.

I woke up very early two mornings ago because my body still wants to be on Europe time, and in an effort to feel productive, I composed a blog post about all the weird circumstances that cause success in this business. The funny thing was, I wasn't really writing the post about my own career per se, since I was in a fine mood about the way things are going for me. But I had been having all these conversations with frustrated colleagues in the few days before I wrote it, and I had been thinking about all the factors that go into creating a successful singer. I was busy feeling just fine about myself, and having fun writing pithy jokes (well, at least I thought they were pithy) about becoming a Buddhist and marrying a movie star, all while still curled up under my duvet cover.

Then, later that same day, I found out a piece of information that made me feel like someone had punched me in the heart with an ice pick. It was a career thing, and I didn't know the whole story, but the information I did have led me to jump to some conclusions that made me really, really depressed. I spent all day in a kind of haze, trying to sift through my own emotions and make sense of them. I re-read my own blog entry, reminding myself that so many of the decisions people in power make have little to do with talent and everything to do with other factors, and that this new information didn't have to change how I felt about myself as an artist. By the end of the day, I had come to terms with the new information, accepted it, and even managed to have a few really interesting and affecting conversations with friends on the subject of being an artist and believing in yourself. I felt like even though the information was difficult and upsetting, it had made me grow a little in my perception of myself.

Then, at the end of the day, I found out that the piece of information I had received had only been part of the story, and when I learned the whole story, the information changed completely, and had nothing whatsoever to do with me. In other words, I had spent all day doubting myself for absolutely no reason. Typical dramatic over-reaction on my part.

In the meantime, my blog post was generating a firestorm (okay, maybe that word is an exaggeration of what my blog was generating, but it sounds newsy, so let me have it) of some really interesting comments from several people about the subject of career success. People from all different facets of the business were weighing in on the tangled and sticky business of career politics, and I found the comments to be extremely fascinating and thought provoking.

Then, I had a great conversation with someone in the business that I really trust, and was given some excellent advice: CALM DOWN. I was reminded of the fact that there is a part of this career that is really like a JOB, and that JOB is controlling our emotions in a way that allows us to continue to do the part we love - the arsty creative part. The job part - the part that's akin to slogging to a fluorescently lit cubicle every day in the snow - is the part where we put ourselves out there as artists, make ourselves vulnerable, get shot down, or squashed, or criticized, and yet we keep going. The "job" we have every day as artists is to continue to believe we have something to say even when it seems like nobody wants to hear it. The daily "work" of an artist is to stay calm in the face of both failure and success, and it really is something that requires an effort every single day. Whether it's keeping yourself from getting overly excited about a fabulous review, or preventing yourself from throwing your computer across the room when a google search reveals that somebody else got a job you really wanted, we all just have to CALM DOWN. And when we find that calm, we can do the single most important thing; make it through another day and start the whole process over again.

I would love to try to find an inspirational video on youtube with which to end this post of a kitten licking a mouse baby or something, but I have some pressing business to attend to. I haven't done my laundry since I've been back from Europe, and it's snowing out, so I can guarantee you that all the washing machines will be unavailable. So I've got to go practice my new CALM DOWN mantra in my building's laundry room. Wish me luck.

The "IT" factor

For some reason, I've been having a lot of conversations lately with colleagues and friends about the "IT" factor, and why certain singers seem to shoot to the top, while other, seemingly equally talented singers, seem to have to constantly be scratching to find jobs. Why one singer gets hired to sing the lead role at the Met while another one has to make ends meet by waiting tables across the street at Fiorello's. You would think the obvious answer would be that the one singing at the Met has more talent than the one waiting tables, but that's not necessarily the case. The answer is actually often something much more elusive and uncontrollable: Fate. Luck. Timing. It doesn't sound very glamourous when you put it that way, does it?

This is not to say that the people who do succeed don't have talent - of course they do, or people wouldn't want to listen to them. But the way a singer's career unfolds is very interesting, and having one big job can lead to several other jobs, which can lead to several other jobs, and can mean you're on your way. And in the meantime, a similar singer with a similar voice type who doesn't get that one big job, can get left in the dust, waiting for their big moment. It's exactly the same with hollywood actors - do you really think that Jennifer Aniston is the best, most beautiful actress that ever walked the earth? I'm sure L.A. is crawling with waitresses who are just as good as she is, but who didn't end up starring on "Friends" and then marrying and divorcing Brad Pitt, so who will never find themselves on the cover of US weekly.

A friend and I tried an experiment recently; She turned her computer around so I couldn't see what was on the screen, and played me recordings of three different singers singing the same aria; one who sings at the Met, one who sings regionally, and one who isn't really singing much at all and who has a temp job. She didn't tell me which was which, and my first instinct was that I liked the one singing regionally and the one temping the best, and of course I was immediately indignant, saying "Why aren't these people doing more???" But then I had to remind myself; Fate. Luck. Timing. The sooner you realize you have no control and give it up, the less frustrated you'll feel all the time.

That's not to say that singers should just give up on trying to improve as artists - on the contrary - that's the only thing we have control over, and therefore the only thing we should focus our energy on. But we definitely have to give up on expecting life to be fair, and expecting that just because people who are "in the know" tell us we're good, life will be smooth sailing. And this doesn't just apply to young singers who are trying to make it - many famous singers are always looking over their shoulder at the next young somebody who they fear might be their replacement, and they can get crazy and mean as a result.

My point? Maybe all artists should become Buddhists who live completely in the moment, and accept that now is all we have. Or maybe we should all try to marry Brad Pitt. I mean, he and Angelina are apparently sort of on the outs, so I say strike while the iron is hot, people.

The times, they are a bloggin'

I still remember the time when, in order to look at a review or yourself, you had to go down to the corner store, buy a newspaper, and scan through until you found the few words to describe your performance (okay, I've mostly been an opera singer in the internet age, but I got reviews when I sang Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz with the Santa Rosa Community Players when I was 11, so bear with me). Now, with a few clicks of the mouse, you discover that people all around the world are talking about you, and some people, who are obviously more technologically savvy than yours truly, are even posting recordings of your singing!

I got back from Europe yesterday, and since I'm still on Europe time, I'm awake before absolutely ANYONE in new york city. It's 5 AM, still dark, and the bagel shop on the corner isn't even open yet. So, until this side of the world wakes up, I'm checking my emails and goofing off online. I saw that I had an email from a friend who said he'd found a recording of me singing my aria on the internet. WHAT? The first performance of Agrippina was indeed broadcast on the radio, and people certainly could have recorded it, but I was amazed (and humbled) that somebody posted my aria specifically on their blog. And since the blog is in spanish, I feel especially connected to my spanish roots (everyone always asks me how I got the name Rivera with all my blonde hair and blue eyes, and it's because my great grandfather was from Spain). Here is the link to the post with the recording of my final aria, recorded on opening night.

I had already heard the recording from the radio, thanks to another technologically savvy and generous reader of this blog, and I had one of those moments where, the first time I heard it, I thought. "WHOA - that was the tempo? That was FAST!!" It did not feel so fast to me at the moment I was singing it, but hearing it from the outside made me feel like I should have been wearing a helmet or something. I had also wondered what the B section sounded like, since I was lying on my side, sort of curled into a ball while singing it, and I was happy to discover that I couldn't really hear a change in the vocal production from that position.

I have to admit, typing my name into google and hitting search makes me very nervous. Should I read every blog entry that mentions my name or just stick to the news publications? Should I read the comments?? I wish I didn't have the personality where I am dying for everyone to like and approve of me, because that would make reading all this stuff much easier. Sometimes I just let my mom sift through it and protect me from the mean stuff, but then she has to see it, and I don't know if it's easier to read something bad about yourself or to read something bad about your only kid.

But even with this daunting plethora of information, I wouldn't change anything about the way we now are able to share information with one click, because it allows me this opportunity to connect with everyone who is reading these words, which has turned out to be a huge pleasure and comfort to me as I'm leading this nomadic and slightly insane life. AND it allows my friends in China to hear me singing in Germany. And come on, how cool is that?

It's.....done?

Wow. I can't believe Agrippina is over. It was one of those big milestones around which I had sort of been planning a lot of my life, and now it's just....finished.

I was looking forward to the production for a long time for a lot of reasons. First of all, I felt like it was a big step forward in my career to be singing in a new production at the Staatsoper conducted by Rene Jacobs. Second, I happen to really love the opera and the role, and was looking forward to doing it again. Third, I felt like it would be a chance for me to gain exposure with a lot of people in Europe that might not have heard of me yet, and hopefully lead to more chances to work over here. I have no idea if the first and the third of these items came to pass - it's too soon to tell I suppose. But for the second item, I absolutely had a wonderful time with this particular production, and not only was it a pleasure to sing Nerone again, but this might have been the very best production I've ever had the pleasure of taking part in. It was one of those magical situations where every single piece seemed to work on it's own, and also to fit together as a whole. The musical and dramatic elements came together so perfectly, and not only were all the singers incredibly fabulous at their roles, they were all really special and wonderful people to work with and get to know. The production was breathtaking and innovative, and was complemented beautifully by the careful and dedicated preparation of the music. And I'm not just blah blah blahing you with all my superlative adjectives - the reviews were almost all screamingly positive, all the performances were sold out, and the audiences gave standing ovations after every show.

Which are all the reasons why I'm so sad it's all over.

But whoa did I learn and grow A LOT from this experience.

There were a lot of elements that influenced me and taught me things, but there were three main people that I took big lessons from on this production; the conductor, the director, and the star soprano. I guess one could learn things from the people holding these positions in almost any production, but I learned specific things from these three people that I will take away with me and have forever.

From Rene Jacobs, I learned that there is absolutely no substitute for utterly detailed musical preparation, and that constant vigilance regarding the integrity of the music can create rather astonishing results. So often, musical details are lost, one by one, when we singers stand up and start walking around while singing. And in order to retain the careful preparation that occurs during the initial musical rehearsals, somebody has to be hyper-vigilant about the details at every rehearsal. This extreme attention to detail pays off in spades when it comes time for the performance and everybody is a little nervous, or distracted, or has an umbrella that won't open or something. Because no matter what happens to you onstage, the integrity of the rhythm, the phrasing, the dynamics, the coloring - it's all completely ingrained in your body, and impossible to avoid. And this intense attention to detail creates a captivating performance, even during a four hour opera filled with dacapo arias and 10 minute long passages of recitative. I also learned things from the Maestro about baroque style, ornamentation, various historical facts about Handel, and lots of interesting pieces of information about Agrippina specifically. But the thing that I will always treasure and attempt to emulate in my own artistic life is his total devotion to musical greatness through to the smallest detail of every turn of phrase. I want to aspire to that level every time I make music, and will be inspired to do so because of my work with him.

The second person I learned lessons from was the director, Vincent Boussard. I think one of the things that identifies a good leader is someone who can empower other people to find what they have inside of them and let it out. This is exactly what Vincent manages to do, and I think it's why he is able to get such good performances out of his singers - he has a way of making you find what is already inside of yourself, and wanting to push your abilities to the limits of what you're capable of and beyond. Somehow, he was able to help me find a balance between extreme physical use of my body combined with a more intimate, delicate expression of emotion. It takes a very skilled director to help an actor find this balance, and having discovered it in this role, I will continue to strive for it in every character I portray.

Finally, I learned a lot from the wonderful soprano playing my mother, Alexandrina Pendatchanska. You may remember that just before I left for Berlin, I posted a clip of her that I came across on youtube here on my blog, not knowing her at all and just being impressed by the clip. Well, now that I know her, i can say that my being impressed with her goes far beyond the clips on youtube of her singing. She really is the consummate artist, with a voice that seems to have absolutely no limits whatsoever either technically or musically. But the thing I learned the most from her about is how to be a wonderful human being AND a great artist. Alexandrina is the anti-diva; she works incredibly hard and takes her work very seriously, but she is always also looking outside of herself in order to be a supportive colleague. She is a wonderful mother and wife, she constantly invites people over to her place and cooks for them, she has a super awesome pair of leather pants that look smoking hot on her, and she's a PUBLISHED AUTHOR of a novel in her native Bulgarian!!! I admire her for her ability to be a first class artist who is still a first class person as well, and for showing me that kindness and generosity seem to be the key to "having it all" - she is living proof. Talent certainly can't be created, it has to just be in there - but the rest - the ability to care for the world around you in spite of all the talent you might have - is something that you have to learn, and I learned how important it is from watching her.

Well, that was a particularly verbose post that I hope doesn't sound too pretentious or fancy schmancy. I could have probably said this all in one sentence; Agrippina at the Berlin Staatsoper; Worth all the hard work and bruises because it was one of the best experiences I've ever had.



photo of cast taken by Marcos Fink: Left to right; Daniel Schmutzard, Anna Prohaska, Dominique Visse, Neal Davies, Bejun Mehta, Jennifer Rivera, Alexandrina Pendatchanska. Taken on the stage of the Berlin Staatsoper.

Mistaaaaaaaaaaake!

We all make mistakes. And anyone who is constantly participating in a live performance is going to eventually make a mistake. No matter how many hours you practice, how many times you repeat something, inevitably, something will go wrong eventually.

And I HATE that.

Some people just shrug and move on, knowing full well that mistakes are a natural and normal part of live theater. I unfortunately am not one of those people. In fact, quite the contrary - I am one of those people who lies in bed at night after making a mistake in a performance and yells "MISTAAAAAAAAAKE!!! MISTAAAAAAAAKE!!! MISTAAAAAAAAAKE!!! repeatedly in my own head. Kind of like this:



(By the way, the tenor in that clip from the TV show "Scrubs" is named Bruce Sledge, and he happens to be the person with whom I performed my very first love scene when I was 19 years old, at a summer program in California called Music Academy of the West. I was a soprano then, and I sang Nanetta to his Fenton, and we had to roll around on the ground and make out. To make things even more difficult, my parents, not knowing what type of scene we would be performing, were sitting in the third row video-taping the whole thing. MISTAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!)

Anyway, last night's fourth performance of Agrippina was generally quite a good one. The energy was high, people were singing beautifully, all systems were go. When we got to my last aria, the big crazy bravura coloratura one, I was happy with how it was going. I was feeling good and psychopathic and singing all my notes fast and furiously, and then went onto the "B" section which is slow and legato, in contrast to the fiendish fioratura of the "A" section. I am lying on the ground for this section, in between the my mother's legs (don't ask) and I was feeling really in the moment, and playing with dynamics and colors. I was feeling good, like all the elements were coming together. Then in the last couple of phrases, something I cannot explain happened, and for some reason I held one of my notes a beat longer than I was supposed to. So, for the next measure I was one beat behind the orchestra, until I got my bearings, corrected myself, and got back on track for the final phrase. It was so weird - that particular thing had never ever happened before - in all the performances I did of this role two years ago, and in all the two months I've been doing it this time, I have never once held that note an extra beat. I have no idea what synapses didn't fire in brain last night that caused me do to that, and I still don't know now. But it was about 4 seconds of pure agony for me, where I realized I was wrong, needed to keep going while simultaneously correcting myself, and it felt like it lasted for about 4 hours.

The funny thing is, the only people who had any idea that something was wrong were me, the conductor, and the soprano playing my mother, since she has heard me sing this aria a million times while lying between her legs. Even the other singers in the show, who were standing in the wings listening, couldn't tell that anything was off. It was ONE measure in a three and a half hour opera. But I tell you, I was so MAD at myself for this error! How could I have gotten it right in all the rehearsals and made this stupid, useless mistake in a performance? WHY?????? MISTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE??????????????

But you know what? The true test of a professional in any field is not the perfection they achieve, but how they recover from their mistakes. Because perfection is absolutely impossible and besides that, it's boring. The reason that human beings like to experience live theater is because of the possibilities that lie within the unexpected. And sometimes that even means mistakes. So we have to accept our mistakes, forgive ourselves, and make the next moment even more interesting than the last. So my job is to silence that voice in my head that screams, "MISTAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE" and keep going, so that in the end, people don't remember mistakes, they just remember that the evening was very interesting.

Mistake? What mistake? I was just seeing if you were awake.

Third time's a charm

I think I really like third performances. The premiere is always nerve-wracking and scary, but also has a very concentrated energy and focus. The second performance is often the most difficult, because after all the energy and focus of the premiere, the second can get a little sleepy and uncentered. But usually by the third performance, we've all found our rhythm, are beginning to take more risks musically and dramatically, and are having more fun.

This was definitely the case with last night's performance # 3 of Agrippina (although the second one really wasn't bad - in fact, I sang better in #2 than in #1 I think). For me, I wasn't terribly nervous, and I was focused on getting a few things perfectly right that I felt I hadn't nailed yet. Performing is such a brain game, and I'm always happy when I get further along into the run, because my brain starts to function more like it does in rehearsals and less like it does during the first few performances. During rehearsals I'm absolutely focused on creating something in the moment, and I'm not editing myself. But for the first couple of performances I have to work really hard to get the voice out of my brain that starts telling me, "That note sucked. You look stupid right now. You're supposed to sing this phrase quietly, dummy." And if I make some sort of minor mistake, fuggetaboutit, my brain is running wild, chastising me and at the same time trying to get back on track.

But by the third performance, the voices in my head usually get quieter, and I start to relax into what I'm doing. I'm not even 100% sure someone would be able to tell the difference from the outside unless they knew me extremely well, but for me, the performance becomes much more enjoyable when I'm in the moment making discoveries at every turn. Last night, the maestro had given me a note that I needed to find more places to sing quietly in the first aria, so I was challenging myself to go against my desire to SHOW OFF MY VOICE AND HOW LOUD AND ROUND IT IS just because it's the beginning of the show, and instead, show moments of Nero's psychopathic rage that are boiling on the inside but haven't exploded yet. I was happy with how that went, and I continued to try to find moments like that throughout the show. But there was still one aria that I want to do better next time, and I will continue to think about how I'm going to make that happen. And it will probably involve a lot of singing in the shower - my favorite time for vocal experimentation.

The other fun thing about the third performance is that you start to have more fun with your colleagues. People throw curve-balls at you by changing slightly what they're doing, by approaching you with more intensity on a certain phrase, or walking way over stage left when you're used to them staying center. But these moments are so fabulous because you are reminded that what you are doing is a living art, and that each performance is it's own "masterpiece" (I'm putting that word in quotation marks, because we've all had nights at the opera which could only be described with the word "piece" if it were used in the sentence "piece of crap". This particular production, however, is a nightly masterpiece - and not even in quotations.). I'm actually sad that we only have 2 more performances because this is the kind of production and the kind of cast with whom I could probably perform a thousand times and still find everything interesting. But sadly, we have to say goodbye to this fantastic production in just a few days and go to other places where we will all probably be portraying far less sinister and crazy characters.

Ah, you psychopathic, matricidal teenage boy, I will miss you so.